The Houston Rockets DOMINATED the Offseason & are INSTANT Championship Contenders with Kevin Durant!

The Houston Rockets DOMINATED the Offseason & are INSTANT Championship Contenders with Kevin Durant!

The Houston Rockets, with the addition of Kevin Durant, are going to be a team that I am all in on next season. And I truly believe that they now have enough to get over the hump and win a championship in this brutal Western Conference. What a season it was for Houston. They completely exceeded expectations in year two of Emeoka. To say the least, this was a great season. I know they lost in the first round, but you have to look at the bright side with this team. They won 52 games. They got the number two seed in a brutal Western Conference with so many great opponents and they were still able to land Kevin Durant with all the loaded assets they have. Now they can retool, go try and win a championship and I think you’ve got to be very, very excited. If you are a Houston Rockets fan, this is one of the deepest teams in the NBA. They can play so well in different styles. They can come at you defensively. They can come at you and hit you with an offensive barrage. This is what the Houston Rockets are now. And this is definitely one of the most deep teams, one of the most scary teams in all of the NBA. Let’s recap some of the moves they made this off season. Where this team can go from here. First of all, we all know the blockbuster move that they made to go out and get Kevin Durant. They sent Jaylen Green, Dylan Brooks, and the 10th overall pick in this year’s draft of the Phoenix Suns for Kevin Durant. And this really felt like a steal for the Houston Rockets. We all know that Phoenix wanted to get that 10th overall pick back, but more importantly, they wanted to try and get a young guy. The Houston Rockets, not giving up Jabari Smith, Almond Thompson, Reed Shepard, or any young guys just felt like a major steal for Houston. All of those guys can continue develop. And I’m very high on all of those guys, and I’ll talk about them later in the video. But the fact that Houston didn’t have to give up any of their young pieces to try and go get Kevin Durant is nuts to me. On the Jaylen Green piece, I think that this was the necessary move that the Houston Rockets had to make. In my opinion, I was not overly critical, but I was cautious when it came to Jaylen Green. We all understand that he is a good scorer, but I think you have to ask yourself at the end of the day, is a certain player good enough to get you over the hump? Is a certain player good enough to be the number one scorer on a team that wins a championship? And that was what I was asking myself when we were heading into the playoffs. Yes, the Rockets were the two seed. Yes, they won 52 games, but Jaylen Green never showed that he can just take over games on a consistent basis and really contend and go up with guys like Stephen Curry or a Kevin Durant or even a LeBron James or a Shay Gilis Alexander, Luca Donuch, etc. Jaylen Green is not in the same stratosphere as those guys when it comes to scoring and taking over games. This is why they had to go out and get Kevin Durant. First of all, look at in the playoffs. He only averaged 13 points per game in the postseason. That ranked fourth on his team. That was the reason why the Rockets lost in the first round to the Warriors. He had an abysmal shooting split. If he just showed up offensively and put up what he averaged in the regular season, I think the Rockets have no problem winning this series. And who knows what they do in the postseason from there. I think they could have beat the Timberwolves if Jaylen Green is playing like his regular season self, but he shrunk in the postseason. This was an alert for the Rockets management. We need to go out and get Kevin Durant cuz we know he’s available and we know what KD can do. Then that’s exactly what they did. I think Kevin Durant can still be one of the best players in the NBA at his age. He’s going to turn 37 this year, which I do not think is a red flag at all. I think Kevin Durant is phenomenal in a multitude of ways. I think one of the most underrated things about his game is what he can do defensively. We all talk about Kevin Durant. We all talk about the elite scorer that he is, one of the best scorers in NBA history. So versatile, can hit the three ball, can pull up, can drive it, hit the midi, whatever you want. Kevin Durant can give it to you offensively. He averaged 26.6 points per game off of 52% shooting, 43% from beyond the arc, six rebounds, 4.2 assists. But Kevin Durant allowed the second lowest field goal percentage in man-to-man defense this year. Kevin Durant was a dog. And the person in front of him was Almond Thompson. But I think Kevin Durant can really contribute. He can immediately go in with Eime Odoka, who he used to play with in Brooklyn when Eime was an assistant coach there. Kevin Durant respects Eay Odoka. Eay Odoka is a defensive-minded head coach. Kevin Durant can fit into that style at a very, very high rate. Kevin Durant doesn’t have to be the main guy touching the ball. That’s the great part about him. Shangon can run the offense and Kevin Durant can play through it and thrive in a big-time way. So, first of all, I love this pickup for the Houston Rockets. I think another very underrated move was them going out and stealing Dorian Finny Smith from the Los Angeles Lakers. This was a big time move here. They signed him to a 4-year contract upwards of almost $60 million. This was big. A guy that can really knock down some three-pointers, that can play defense. Another good wing for this Rockets team. They just keep building depth on this squad and that’s what you have to love about this team. They can go almost 12 deep now. They also added Clint Capella, former Hawks big man. This team right now when you look at the starting five, you have Fred Van Vleet, you have Almond Thompson, Kevin Durant, Jabari Smith, and Alprren Shen. And then on the bench, you have Reed Shepard, Cam Whitmore, DFS, Tari E, and Steven Adams. And I didn’t even list off Clint Capella. That is a deep 11man rotation. And that’s going to be fun to see what Emma Odoka can do with those 11 guys. I think right now for the Houston Rockets and what is next for this team is development from a few of those guys. First of all, I’m looking at this off season in a huge way for three players in that starting lineup. In specific, I’m looking at Almond Thompson, Jabari Smith, and Alprin Shenon. I think first of all for ShenGun, a guy that averaged upwards of 21 points per game in the postseason, a guy that really excelled in the playoffs in my opinion, had a great series against the Warriors. He had 29.9 points per game, 11.9 rebounds, 5.3 assists, led the led the team in steals as well. Alpert Shenun basically did it all. I think if you can get another step from him, cuz he’s only 22 years old, which is wild. If you can get another step from Shangun in these next two years, which I think is guaranteed, that’s going to automatically be a major positive for the Houston Rockets. Now, what can you get from Almond Thompson and Jabari Smith? Those are the two guys that I’m looking at with very high regards. If either one of them can take a pretty big step, which I think both of them are capable of taking massive steps. What if both of them take big steps? Almond Thompson starts to sh up that three-point shot. Jabari Smith starts to become more confident and really start to knock down some shots at a high clip. This Houston Rockets team is going to be unbeatable if those three guys can all take a step. They don’t have to take massive ones. They’ve just got to take a step. And for their age, for how young they are, I think that that’s not a crazy thing to ask for. Then you throw Kevin Durant in the mix. Then you throw Fred Van Vleet in the mix, a former champion, a grizzled veteran, a guy that had some big time performances in that Warrior series. This Rockets team is right there. Let’s look at the outlook of the Western Conference. I made a video talking about how great I thought the Nuggets are now after some of these moves that they’ve made. I think right now, call me crazy, I think that they should be the favorite to win it all with the moves that they made. They won the championship two years ago. They took the Thunder to seven games. Now they’re even better than they were last year. I think the Thunder also are right behind them at number two in the Western Conference. And then I have the Houston Rockets with a lot of the moves they’ve made, I’d probably put the Minnesota Timberwolves right behind the Rockets as well. And if you’re going to throw everyone into a tier A category, I would say all four of those teams are in a tier A category going forward in the Western Conference. And that’s when it kind of gets interesting from there cuz you have so many different great teams in the Western Conference. What do the Dallas Mavericks look like next year when Kyrie Irving’s healthy? They get Cooper flag. This is going to be a really scary team. I’m not ready to put them in that tier A category quite yet. What do the Los Angeles Clippers look like? James Harden took that team friendly deal. They get Brook Lopez. They’re going to be a fun team to watch. What do the Los Angeles Lakers do? I’m assuming they’re going to sign DeAndre Aton. Sure, up that big man position, but they were the number three seed this year and won the same amount of ball games as the Nuggets and Clippers and only two games left in the Rockets. So, they’re going to be an interesting team to watch as well. And of course, you have the Golden State Warriors with Stephen Curry and Jimmy Butler. And then finally, I think the San Antonio Spurs can throw their hat in the ring as a team that is a playoff contender if healthy. You get a full season of De’aran Fox under your belt, Stefan Castle, rookie of the year. You now get Dylan Harper, you get Caleb Bryant. This is going to be a really brutal conference when I look at the entirety of the Western Conference. But I think Houston is right there. I think that the moves this off season put themselves in a position to win the championship next year to really go out there and contend with some of the big boys in the Western Conference. I’m all in on this Houston Rockets team. They are absolutely a championship contender next season. I’m Kaden Cubler and thank you guys for watching.

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